Are You Looking for Solace or a Solution?

As Mark Twain famously noted after his travels in India, under the banner of spirituality, humans have reached the highest peaks and the lowest depths of life, and everything in between. For the seeker who is truly interested in knowing the essential nature of life, Sadhguru says, the decision lies between looking for solace or for a solution.

Full Transcript:

I think it was Hemingway who said this. He visited certain parts of India, he visited the wrong places and he saw certain people and went back and then he said, “If you don’t eat well, if you are not dressed well, if you don’t live well you must be spiritual.” (Laughter) How is that! But at the same time… (I’m sorry) another very prominent American who is still seen as one of the keenest minds that America ever produced, Mark Twain – you read some Mark Twain here? Hmm? Mark Twain came visiting India because he was so fascinated with Indian mysticism. He found the right kind of guide who took him around and he met many people and when he was leaving, he said, “Anything that can ever be done either by man or God has been done in this land.” So, both have happened; the peaks have happened and the most horrible depths have happened. It… the question is just this are you going to be the peak or are you going to be the bottom? That’s an individual choice but now making the choice, “What do I do, where do I go?” – they are making this more and more complex and more and more deceptive.

Now, if someone is going to tell you that your dead father is in the highest heaven it’s very satisfying. Hmm? Isn’t it so? And if someone is willing to tell you your mother-in-law is in hell… (Laughter) See. If somebody is going to tell you, you yourself are going straight to heaven it is even more reassuring but is that… are you in such a childish state of mind that this is all you are seeking? Some idiot who does not know where he is going is going to tell you where you are going. (Laughter) Is that all you are looking for? So, this is a decision you have to make, “Am I looking for solace or am I looking for a solution?” If you are looking for solution then it’s a different game. If you are looking for solace it’s a different game. Solace is just cheap psychiatry, you know. “Don’t worry, everything will be okay; don’t worry, everything will be okay. God is just keeping his lap open just for you. If you die you are going to land straight in his lap.” (Laughter) See if you are going to land in God’s lap I don’t think you should postpone it for tomorrow. (Laughter) No? Isn’t it? If you are going to land in such a blessed place you should not postpone it for a moment. This is okay for somebody else, not for you, isn’t it? It’s all right to tell this to somebody, not for yourself; it doesn’t work. Isn’t it so? Yes, but something that doesn’t work we have peddled for too long. So what really works has been lost in this confusion.

The only thing that you have to work with right now is your body and your mind. These are the only two things you have. “No, my soul.” You can’t work with it, nobody ever worked with the soul. You can only use your body; you can only use your mind, isn’t it? These two things, if you bring it and make them into conducive vehicles then something beyond becomes a living possibility, not because you believe in it, not because it’s written in your great scripture, not because somebody that you think is a great Guru said that, simply because you have found a way to go beyond the limitations of your body and your mind, that’s all. Otherwise no way… no other way it’s going to happen. I did everything for the wrong reasons but I did the right things, so it works. So, I want you to know it is not the intention, it is the nature of action which yields the result, isn’t it? Yes or no? Even for the wrong reasons if you do the right things, right things will happen to you. That is how the damn existence is structured, what to do? That is why good people are always suffering. (Laughter) People who believe they are good they are always suffering because they have great intentions but stupid actions, so they suffer. (Laughter)
So, this is…this whole idea of right and wrong, good and bad is all human nonsense. Existence is not human centric. They have always told you… many religions of the world have been going about telling people “You are made in God’s own image” and once you are in God’s own image naturally the place that you live They believed this for a long time, isn’t it? Even now they are insisting. You’ve heard of this guy Copernicus? Copernicus was one of the first guys who came and said, “Earth is not the center of the universe; not only not the center of the universe, it is not even the center of the solar system.” And he promptly died. That’s not bad thing; it’s a good thing because the next man after him, when he uttered the same thing the local church decided to skin him alive. They wanted to peal his skin off and the skin would not cooperate. So, they decided to burn him alive. The next significant man who has uttered the same thing was Galileo; he said the same thing. Then they got ready with the skin peelers. Then he said, “No, no, no, no; earth is the center of the universe and the cosmos. What is my problem? (Laughter) As you say earth is not only the center of the solar system and not only the center of the universe; it is the very center of the cosmos. Anyway I do not know what is the center of the cosmos, you want to assume. I want to save my skin. That much I know.” (Laughs)
So, today science has proved to you that definitely earth is not the center of the solar system, in the universe you are just a miniscule. Tomorrow morning if you and your planet disappears, if it evaporates nobody is going to miss it. Hmm? The whole solar system evaporates tomorrow morning it will be just a small vacant place that nobody is going to miss in the existence, nothing is going to happen. Yes? God won’t come rescuing you. It’ll just pooff it will go. This is a good thing. This whole idea that I am made in the image of God has left man so crude and he has been walking upon this planet so wantonly without any concern for any other life on this planet, simply because he believes he is in the image of God. If you knew that your life is as significant or as insignificant as that of an ant – it is actually.

All these grand ideas that human beings have about themselves that we are made in the image of God and God loves us and… These are dangerous ideas which has made human beings so uncaring, unresponsive to life around him. He thinks this planet and universe is all made for him, no other life has any right to live here except him. He just lost… all his marbles in his head are gone simply because of these kind of ideas. Now, modern science sort of has been very bad for your ego. Now it says you are just a blob of nothing, pulsating like this right now tomorrow pooff… really. See, whatever you think about yourself – are you breathing everyone? (Laughter) Is everybody breathing?
Meditators: Yes

Sadhguru: No yogis. Nobody is able to hold their breath and sit. They didn’t teach you in the program? Inhalation, exhalation, inhalation, exhalation, inhalation, inhalation, exhalation… (Says in a stretching tone) (Laughter) The next inhalation didn’t happen… (Gestures) wherever we search you don’t exist. Yes or no? Tch… See, how fragile it is. Just breathe carefully, it may go away. (Laughter) It’s like a balloon – in and out, in and out, out and it didn’t go in again pooff…. gone! That fragile; at the same time how sturdy! Hmm? Isn’t it so? How many things a man can do but at the same time how fragile! It doesn’t take an elephant to kill you, a damn virus… (Laughter)

So, without knowing the essential nature of life we are trying to somehow blunder through, that’s the whole problem. Now how to exist here? Today how to live? How to make this life in such a way that it is conducive to know, experience and manifest deeper dimensions of life as a way of living? So, if you want to receive the deeper dimensions of life, if you have to become conducive, if your mind and your body and your energies have to become conducive to receive something beyond what you are right now, first and foremost thing is they must listen to you. They must take instructions from you. If your body, if your mind, if your energies took instructions from you, would you naturally keep it in utmost pleasantness? Yes or no? You would. So, if you keep this continuously pleasant, if you keep this constantly pleasant then your intelligence will flower to a completely different dimension of perception. When you are no more a issue… when you are no more a issue by yourself, there are million issues on the outside but you are not the issue, you are just fine – if you become like this you become receptive. So, always the yogic systems have been talking about blissfulness, ecstasy, ananda, you know all this stuff not because blissfulness is a goal by itself. It is only in a state of pleasantness this will be at the highest level of receptivity, otherwise when this is a… in turmoil, when this is an issue by itself it cannot receive; it cannot understand the core of life the way it is. It can only fight for survival.

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